Just a little note…

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Unfortunate, yet hardly surprising, even to the most casual of observers.

And whilst I can understand (yet not agree with) the Left’s position not to send troops into Iraq in the first place – an argument, largely moot, for another day – what I don’t understand is their fervish desire to pull the troops out.

It always smacked of idealism, ideology, rather than hard-nosed practicality.

After all, what was so bad with having a US troop presence there to help maintain Iraq’s fragile democratic stability?

One could argue that I am biased because a) I am centre-right politically and b) because I live in South Korea, a nation that has had a US troop presence – some 37,00028,000 or so currently – since the armistice between North and South Korea and have seen what a permanent US troop presence looks like.

I am happy to accept those labels and can gladly tell you that such a presence ain’t that bad.

By and large, US bases in Korea – and Japan for that matter – haven’t been a problem.

Sure, issues pop up from time to time, but if one looks at the big picture, then a strong US presence here can only be seen as a good thing, a safe option, a pretty darn good insurance policy against North Korea trying anything major on.

Almost 60 years we’ve had US troops over here without any major problems. In fact, many major problems (a full-scale Nork attack comes to mind) have arguably been averted thanks to this presence.

So, why the rush to leave Iraq essentially free of any US military before even a decade is up and before, as is clear now, the job is done?

OK, so perhaps it’s a bit like comparing apples and oranges. US troops in Korea, aside from those stationed at the DMZ, aren’t on active duty as they were in Iraq.

However, it’s not a completely dissimilar situation. Perhaps a good analogy would be to compare mandarins and oranges.

US troops not only provided safety and stability in the fledgling democracy that is Iraq – a country still steeped with sectarian and tribal rivalries – but surely they also provided a deterrence to anybody or any groups who want to destabilise the nation.

What takes years to build can take mere seconds to destroy, and I fear a lot of hard work is being undone on the whim of a flawed, feel-good, ideology.

So why?

The only practical reason that I can see for Obama pulling his troops out of Iraq is that with an Iranian confrontation looming which includes action needed in Syria, Iraq frankly isn’t important enough any more or at best, an impractical option for a potentially over-stretched military.

Of course, Obama – a man of the progressive Left – can’t actually come out and say that but it is reasonably well-known to those who don’t just get their news from the MSM that Obama is actually more of a war-time president than Bush was, having committed more troops to both Iraq and Afghanistan, and for a longer period of time.

So whilst the MSM might play along with the “bringing the troops home” narrative, the evidence indicates this simply isn’t the case.

To someone who doesn’t know any better, it’s as if Russia, India, and China – all wannabe first chickens to the trough – are ganging up on America.**

PS Who wouldn’t love to be a fly on the wall listening in to what the US is really saying about China? Their ever-expanding use of soft power is in many ways, stuffing it all up for America. China must surely be becoming an ever-increasing pain in the neck.

This leaves Australia in an interesting position. Our main export partner is China. Our main ally is the US. We send China our goodies to help them get rich and rival America. We practice shooting our guns with America to help keep America on top.

And yet China and America are also so deep in each other’s pockets. America buys China’s goods. China buys America’s debt.

Fun times.

** I highly recommend reading The Lucifer Principle by Howard Bloom. Part of the book talks about the pecking order of nations.

Over at Gov and Vlad Tepes a call has gone out for assistance. The remarkable Fjordman is in somewhat straightened circumstances, so a few of us are helping put the word out for him. He hasn’t had a blog of his own for years, although that has not stopped his productivity. What did slow him down, however, was the Norwegian gunman Breivik naming him (among others) as being a bit of an inspiration*. I personally think that Breivik’s ‘manifesto’ is a load of tripe. Breivik talks of christianity, say’s he’s not one, and yet gets wheeled out as being a fundamentalist christian. As someone who is into Extreme Popery, I call bullshite. In the meantime, and along with everything else, Fjordman has now pretty much lost everything – job, home, country. I’ve got a cat he could have, but that’s no use when there’s nowhere to keep it. He does have a few (for him) words over at Vlad’swhich I’ll paste here:

Hello from Peder Jensen alias Fjordman. I will continue writing under one name or the other and hope to publish several books in the next year and a half, but after the Breivik case in Norway, which I got mixed up in against my will, I no longer have a job and I am also moving out of my old flat in Oslo, which I already left weeks ago. There are always some costs involved in moving to a different location and creating a new life somewhere else. If you have enjoyed some of my essays in the past I would be grateful if you donated a few bucks this time. Think of it as a Fjordman Relocation Fund. Just mark the donations as being for me and I will get it via Vlad’s fine website. Thank you, and thank you for all the support and kind words I get from long-time readers. Peder

This is not quite a twilight bark – more a twilight blog. *very interesting review of Breivik’s ‘manifesto’ by someone of the left-persuasion. I’m not sure she’s read the Reliance, or the hadiths or the Hedaya, but that’s only to be expected. A few weeks with HuT might help her with a few things. Like the fact that muslims believe that sharia law is Allah’s Law for all men for all time, so whether she agrees with it or not is irrelevant. That’s not conspiracy theory, neither is it conspiracy that a man has been hounded out of his home for writing some hard-hitting essays that focus on the Decline and Fall of Western Civilisation. We’re just not supposed to mention the islamists because we’re not allowed to hurt feelings. Please check out the post over at VladTepes, and if you can donate money to assist Fjordman, please do. If you can’t, then linklove and prayers are most welcome also.

In an earlier briefing, we may have given the impression that Osama bin Laden was armed when we stormed his compound. We meant, of course, that he was unarmed. Moreover, we would like to clarify that when we said he resisted arrest, that was merely a figure of speech. In addition, we would like to make a small correction to our report that bin Laden used his wife as a human shield; he did not, in fact, use his wife as a shield. Earlier statements that she was killed were, of course, a misunderstanding. She was not killed; that was another lady. Furthermore, we would like to remove any doubt over our claim that we have decided to release a photograph of Osama bin Laden’s body by confirming that we shall not be releasing any pictures of the body. We trust that this clears up any confusion.

I hope that clarifies things for y’all. We now return you to your Most Open & Transparent Government Evah™ !

It’s been less than 72 hours since President Barack Obama announced that U.S. Special Forces had killed Osama Bin Laden. Since then, his administration has been hard at work screwing the whole thing up. [CLICK]